'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Barbara Ehrenreich: Circuit City Slaughter: Seniority Means a Pink Slip
Not so long ago seniority was rewarded with higher pay and other perks. But that higher pay now carries a lethal risk, as Circuit City has just demonstrated.
Annalee Newitz: Is Digital Racial Profiling on Tap?
The next digital divide could introduce a new era in racial profiling.
Jaime O'Neill: The Pray-For-Me Hustle (smirkingchimp.com)
Robert Schuller, one of America's high priests of evangelical hucksterism, wants to pray for me. He's sitting down in southern California in that big crystal tabernacle built for him by the gullible, just thinking about praying for little ol' me up here in northern California.
Bill Gallagher: Kissinger's Useful Idiot Bush Now Finds Himself Alone and Friendless (niagarafallsreporter.com)
King Rat, Henry Kissinger, is leaving the USS Shrub to save face. His departure underlines the willingness of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to continue sending young Americans to die in a venture they know has failed. Kissinger is an expert in that area.
Mark Benjamin: Injured troops shipped back into battle
Salon has uncovered further evidence that the military sent soldiers with acute post-traumatic stress disorder, severe back injuries and other serious war wounds back to Iraq.
Gentlemen of the bar (guardian.co.uk)
For most of the 1980s, teenagers would flock to a tube station in north London, hoping to bump into Chet and Joe Okonkwo. Were the twins pop singers? Footballers? Film stars? No - just snappy dressers with paper rounds and an obsession with the upper classes. Mary Mount tells their remarkable story.
No surrender! (guardian.co.uk)
Give up the paid job at your peril, is the controversial warning to a new generation of stay-at-home mothers from one of America's star interviewers. Suzanne Goldenberg meets the woman who is sure work and children can mix - because she has lived it.
Andrew Tobias: Which Would You Choose: Love or Country?
A friend wrote this for me to put a human face on the need for a bill you never heard of, introduced by Congressman Jerry Nadler, called the Uniting America's Families Act: "MY COUNTRY OR MY SPOUSE" By Andrew Jason.
Felice Prager: The Math-Challenged Dieter (irascibleprofessor.com)
I received a phone call from the health and beauty reporter at a local newspaper. "I read your essay in Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul, and I thought I could get an expert quote and some feedback from you about a theory I'm researching," she said.
Bob Ostertag: The Professional Suicide of a Recording Musician (QuestionCopyright.org)
An experienced musician explains why most musicians today would be much better off sharing music via the Internet than signing standard industry recording contracts.
Reader Suggestion
White White-Tailed Deer
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
The kid's 'spring break' is this week.
Dr. Bronner To The Rescue
Don Bolles
A soap manufacturer is coming to the defense of a punk rocker who was jailed after his bottle of liquid peppermint cleanser tested positive for gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, often called the "date-rape drug" because it leaves people groggy and powerless.
Germs drummer Don Bolles was arrested last week after police pulled over the 50-year-old musician on a traffic stop. Police said a toiletry kit containing denture glue, razors and a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap was found inside the vehicle.
A field test of the soap indicated it was GHB, said Sgt. Evan Sailor of the Newport Beach Police Department. Bolles, whose real name is Jimmy Michael Giorsetti, was arrested on suspicion of felony narcotics possession.
Executives at Escondido-based Dr. Bronner's hired an attorney, Bruce Margolin, to represent the rocker.
David Bronner, the company's president, said police field tests of Magic Soap have occasionally indicated THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, because the soap includes hemp oil. But he said finding GHB in the product is "beyond belief. ... The field test must have been flawed or tampered with."
Don Bolles
Eyes Mexican Pyramids For Next Photo Shoot
Spencer Tunick
U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick, famous for photographing crowds of nude people around the world, said he wants to do his next shoot at pyramids outside Mexico City.
Tunick told the Televisa network on Wednesday that the capital city's photo shoot has been postponed until May 6, and that he wants to get permission to photograph at the pyramids of Teotihuacan, although other sites still are being considered.
Tunick has spent three years planning the project, and has 3,700 participants registered so far.
He hopes to have at least 4,000 volunteers, the same number that took part in a photo shoot in Santiago, Chile, a few years ago.
Spencer Tunick
PBS Amending Burn's Documentary
'The War'
PBS promised Wednesday to amend Ken Burns' upcoming documentary series on World War II to include stories about Latino veterans after activists complained he ignored their contributions to the American effort.
Burns has also agreed to hire a Latino producer to help create the additional content, PBS said.
The 14-hour documentary, "The War," is scheduled to premiere in September. PBS hopes it becomes as popular as Burns' "The Civil War" was a decade ago, and plans to sell a companion book and DVDs.
'The War'
Baby News
Oliver McLanahan Phillips
"Boston Legal" star Julie Bowen brought real drama to the set: She went into labor.
The actress gave birth later Tuesday to a boy, Oliver McLanahan Phillips, at a Los Angeles hospital, her management representative, Geoffrey Ashley, said Wednesday.
Bowen, 37, who is married to Scott Phillips, had worked through her pregnancy and her water broke while she was filming, Ashley said.
Oliver McLanahan Phillips
Divorce News
Danny Bonaduce
The wife of radio and TV host Danny Bonaduce has filed for divorce from the former "Partridge Family" child star after more than 16 years of marriage.
Gretchen Bonaduce, whose troubled marriage with the radio and TV host was fodder for a TV reality show, filed papers Tuesday in Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. She is seeking custody of their 6-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, according to the documents.
Danny Bonaduce announced the filing on Tuesday on KLSX-FM's "The Adam Carolla Show," the syndicated radio show where he works weekday mornings.
Danny Bonaduce
Fans Fock To Wikipedia
'The Office'
In the NBC series "The Office," the boss Michael Scott turned to Wikipedia for tips on fending off an employee's request for a pay raise. Viewers quickly flocked to the online encyclopedia and added their take to its entry on negotiations.
Administrators at Wikipedia had to limit editing of the entry, most recently late Tuesday, placing it in "semi-protection" mode. That meant users couldn't make changes anonymously or from accounts fewer than four days old - to discourage those drawn to the site specifically because of the broadcast.
Fans of Stephen Colbert's Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report" flocked to Wikipedia to alter articles on elephants after he said on the program, "all we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true - for instance, that Africa has more elephants today than it did 10 years ago."
'The Office'
Says Science Too Narrow
Atavistic Pope
Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life's origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.
The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.
But Benedict, whose remarks were published on Wednesday in Germany in the book "Schoepfung und Evolution" (Creation and Evolution), praised scientific progress and did not endorse creationist or "intelligent design" views about life's origins.
Speculation about Benedict's views on evolution have been rife ever since a former student and close advisor, Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, published an article in 2005 that seemed to align the Church with the "intelligent design" view.
Atavistic Pope
Lose Memorabilia Lawsuit
Beach Boys
A federal judge has thrown out a $60 million lawsuit the Beach Boys brought against two men they accused of stealing the band's property from a warehouse and trying to sell the items at auction, a lawyer for one of the men said on Tuesday.
In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real ruled that the band had no evidence that memorabilia collector Roy Sciacca and warehouse owner Allen Gaba had stolen the trove of Beach Boys items from a North Hollywood warehouse in 1994, according to court documents.
Sciacca maintained he bought the items in the 1980s from a warehouse sale held by the band, his attorney William White said on Tuesday.
Beach Boys
Buy Big Boat
Jolie & Pitt
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are treating themselves to an Italian luxury yacht fitted with a swimming pool, a heliport and a submarine.
The yacht will be built in the shipyard of Civitavecchia, a port town north of Rome, by luxury shipbuilder Privilege Yard SpA, which said Wednesday that the couple has commissioned an 85-metre-long (280-foot-long) yacht for C$307 million. Delivery is set for July 2009.
Features include a swimming pool, a heliport, speedboats and a small submarine that will allow guests to explore the sea up to a depth of 300 metres.
Jolie & Pitt
No Americans Available?
Rich Little
Conservative Canadian comedian Rich Little would be the first to tell you he's no political satirist.
Never was, doesn't want to be. So when he performs next week at the annual White House press corps bash, just after resident George W. Bush finishes his shtick, Little will be doing what he does best.
That means the impressions and gentle jokes that made him famous as he cracked up Johnny Carson in the 1970s and became a favourite of Ronald Reagan's in the 1980s.
"I mainly appeal to the masses, the everyday person in middle America who watches some TV, knows a bit about politics, not a lot."
Rich Little
Indicted In Tax Case
Joe Francis
Multimillionaire founder of the racy "Girls Gone Wild" video series Joe Francis, 34, was indicted by a grand jury in Reno, Nevada, on charges of deducting more than $20 million in false business expenses on the 2002 and 2003 corporate income tax returns of his California-based Mantra Films Inc. and Nevada-based Sands Media Inc.
Francis, who has built a $100 million business from selling videos of young women exposing their breasts, faces up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines if convicted, the Department of Justice said.
The indictment was returned a day after Francis was taken into custody in Panama City, Florida, for contempt of court over an outburst during negotiations on a civil lawsuit brought by seven women who said they were underage when they were filmed by his company in 2003.
Joe Francis
Cops Plea, Gets Probation
Snoop Dogg
A stone-faced Snoop Dogg pleaded no contest to felony gun and drug charges Wednesday and avoided what could have been a yearslong prison sentence.
The 35-year-old rapper, born Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr., agreed to five years' probation and 800 hours of community service. He faced charges of gun possession by a felon and sale or transportation of marijuana.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry Smerling ruled that Snoop Dogg could not have any gang members in his entourage and must notify the probation department before leaving the state. The rapper must also provide authorities a DNA sample and he must have a medical permit if he uses marijuana.
Snoop Dogg
$2.5M In Back Taxes
Marc Anthony
Marc Anthony has agreed to pay about $2.5 million in back taxes, interest and penalties because of his failure to file returns for five years, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said that Anthony, who was not prosecuted on tax charges, failed to file returns for 2000 through 2004 on $15.5 million in income. He said the singer, who is married to Jennifer Lopez, filed tax returns for 2005.
Morgenthau said his office did not prosecute Anthony, 38, because a professional accountant prepared his tax returns and the entertainer apparently thought the returns had been filed and any due taxes had been paid.
Marc Anthony
Another Problem, Another Scapegoat
Katie Couric
"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric may vividly recall her first library card, but the network says she was unaware that her online video essay about the virtues of libraries was largely a work of plagiarism.
CBS News said this week the April 4 installment of "Katie Couric's Notebook" consisted mostly of passages lifted verbatim from a Wall Street Journal column by Jeffrey Zaslow that was published in March.
The producer responsible for Couric's piece was fired on Monday night, hours after the Journal contacted CBS News to complain, network spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said on Tuesday.
Although the text for the minute-long video was written in first person -- introduced by Couric with the line, "I still remember when I got my first library card" -- Couric did not compose the piece herself and was unaware that much of it was plagiarized, Genelius said.
Katie Couric
Ford CEO Steals Kimmel's Material
Alan Mulally
Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Alan Mulally is no longer laughing about his suggestion that he saved resident Bush's life during a recent White House visit.
The No. 2 U.S. automaker has apologised after Mulally said his claim that he had intervened to prevent U.S. resident George W. Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of an experimental Ford vehicle had been meant as a joke.
The CEO found himself in an embarrassing situation when the story was featured on blogs and even in mainstream media such as the Financial Times, which said, "he may have saved the incumbent of the Oval Office from blowing himself up."
Ford said Mulally's anecdote had been inspired by a video spoof featured on ABC-TV's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" talk show that suggested Bush blew himself up by plugging the cord in the wrong outlet.
Alan Mulally
In Memory
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in New York. He was 84 and had homes in New York and in Sagaponack on Long Island.
Vonnegut wrote plays, essays and short fiction. But it was his novels that became classics of the American counterculture, making him a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and '70s. Dog-eared paperback copies of his books could be found in the back pockets of blue jeans and in dorm rooms on campuses throughout the United States.
His novels - 14 in all - were alternate universes, filled with topsy-turvy images and populated by races of his own creation, like the Tralfamadorians and the Mercurian Harmoniums. He invented phenomena like chrono-synclastic infundibula (places in the universe where all truths fit neatly together) as well as religions, like the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent and Bokononism (based on the books of a black British Episcopalian from Tobago "filled with bittersweet lies," a narrator says).
The defining moment of Vonnegut's life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied forces in 1945, an event he witnessed firsthand as a young prisoner of war. Thousands of civilians were killed in the raids, many of them burned to death or asphyxiated. "The firebombing of Dresden," Vonnegut wrote, "was a work of art." It was, he added, "a tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed and vanity and cruelty of Germany."
To Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," summed up his philosophy:
"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "
Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922, a fourth-generation German-American and the youngest of three children. His father, Kurt Sr., was an architect. His mother, Edith, came from a wealthy brewery family. Vonnegut's brother, Bernard, who died in 1997, was a physicist and an expert on thunderstorms.
One of many Zen-like words and phrases that run through Vonnegut's books, "so it goes" became a catchphrase for opponents of the Vietnam war.
His last book, in 2005, was a collection of biographical essays, "A Man Without a Country." It, too, was a best seller.
Kurt Vonnegut
In Memory
Roscoe Lee Browne
Actor Roscoe Lee Browne, whose rich voice and dignified bearing brought him an Emmy Award and a Tony nomination, has died. He was 81.
Browne had a decades-long career that ranged from classic theater to TV cartoons. He also was a poet and a former world-class athlete.
His deep, cultured voice was heard narrating the 1995 hit movie "Babe." On screen, his character often was smart, cynical and well-educated, whether a congressman, a judge or a butler.
Born May 2, 1925, to a Baptist minister in Woodbury, New Jersey, Browne graduated from historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he later returned to teach comparative literature and French.
He was selling wine for an import company when he decided to become a full-time actor in 1956 and had roles that year in the inaugural season of the New York Shakespeare Festival in a production of "Julius Caesar."
In 1961, he starred in an English-language version of Jean Genet's play "The Blacks." Two years later, he was The Narrator in a Broadway production of "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," a play by Edward Albee from a novella by Carson McCullers. In a front page article on the advances made by blacks in the theater, the New York Times noted that Browne's understudy was white.
In movies, he was a spy in the 1969 Alfred Hitchcock feature "Topaz" and a camp cook in 1972's "The Cowboys.".
On television, he had several memorable guest roles. He was a snobbish black lawyer trapped in an elevator with bigot Archie Bunker in an episode of the 1970s TV comedy "All in the Family" and the butler Saunders in the comedy "Soap." He won an Emmy in 1986 for a guest role as Professor Foster on "The Cosby Show."
In 1992, Browne returned to Broadway in "Two Trains Running," one of August Wilson's acclaimed series of plays on the black experience. It won the Tony for best play and brought Browne a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor.
Browne also wrote poetry and included some of it along with works by masters such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William Butler Yeats in "Behind the Broken Words," a poetry anthology stage piece that he and Anthony Zerbe performed annually for three decades.
Roscoe Lee Browne
In Memory
Stan Daniels
Stan Daniels, the Emmy-winning co-creator and executive producer of "Taxi" and a writer on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," has died. He was 72.
The Toronto-born Daniels won eight Emmys during his long television career, including three for "Taxi" and three for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
He wrote for "The Dean Martin Show" and "The Bill Cosby Show" before starting as a writer on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which ran from 1970 to 1977. He also wrote for the Cloris Leachman spinoff series "Phyllis."
He co-created the Brenda Vaccaro series "Lily," and co-wrote the African-American Cinderella TV movie "Cindy" with James L. Brooks, whom he worked with on "Taxi."
Daniels then produced, wrote and directed the TV shows "The Kid," "For Richer, For Poorer," "Glory! Glory!" and "The Substitute Wife."
Daniels is survived by his wife of 50 years, Alene; children Dari, Shelley, Alan and Larry, and two grandsons.
Stan Daniels
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